


far away from here

by jetplane



Series: spring break (my heart) 2020 [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Accidental Death, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Death, Gen, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Injury, Major Character Injury, Suicide, Tragedy, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23035903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jetplane/pseuds/jetplane
Summary: A BAU agent is hit by friendly fire while apprehending an unsub. The consequences of that bullet will haunt the entire team for a very long time.
Series: spring break (my heart) 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655539
Comments: 12
Kudos: 128





	1. what happened

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This is not a happy fic. Note the tags for guns, character death, suicide, etc.
> 
> 3/10/20: I'm changing the title of this fic from "alone" because I want to have a consistent theme across all the fics in this series. I know song lyric titles are a little cliché, but I hope you'll forgive me.
> 
> "we can meet again somewhere//somewhere far away from here"  
> \- "Sign of the Times" by Harry Styles

It was supposed to be a cut-and-dry apprehension of an unsub. His name was Eric Daniels, and he’d strangled four men who reminded him of his father. The team knew that. They’d done all the hard work - building the profile, sorting through the suspect pool, and now locating the unsub. This last bit was supposed to be easy. 

-

“You’re surrounded, Eric,” Hotch says to the unsub. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”

The unsub’s eyes dart around uneasily as wind whips his long hair around his face. There are six guns trained on him - Hotch and Morgan in front of him, Prentiss and Rossi on the sides, and JJ and Reid in the back. 

“It’s time to give yourself up, man,” Morgan tells him. “Just drop the gun.”

Instead, Daniels raises his weapon. Six FBI agents fire in unison, and crimson sprays from the unsub’s chest. He’s dead before his body hits the ground. 

JJ notices Reid first. She takes in his too-pale skin, his stunned expression, and the blood pouring from his neck. “Spence!”

She’s by his side in an instant, catching him just before he falls and lowering him gently to the ground. Rossi tries to hold pressure to the wound, which has already soaked Reid’s shirt with blood. 

The rest of the group is less than a second behind. “What happened?” Hotch demands, eyes darting around for a shooter who isn’t there. He shoots a glance behind him, where the bullet came from, and then it all comes together. There were two agents who were pointed in Reid’s direction. One of them was Morgan. The other was Hotch himself. 

But there’s no time to dwell on that. Prentiss pulls out her cell phone and begins to frantically call for an ambulance. Rossi continues to try to stop the bleeding. Hotch and Morgan stand by helplessly, knowing there is nothing they can do that isn’t already being done. 

“JJ?” Reid croaks. In his brown eyes is a mixture of fear, confusion, and pain. “What - what happened?”

“You’re going to be okay,” she assures him, taking hold of his hand. “I’m right here.”

Reid coughs weakly. Blood dribbles from his mouth, and terror grips JJ’s heart as his eyes start to flutter closed. “Spence? Spencer, stay with me!”

He forces his eyelids open, looking at her with a dazed expression. “I’m...right here,” he whispers. JJ strokes his hair with her free hand. She can feel tears building up, but she refuses to let them fall. 

“Don’t try to talk, Reid,” Rossi tells him. “Just lie still. The medics are on their way.”

“You’re going to be fine, Spence,” JJ assures Reid. “You’re going to be just fine.”

“I - I don’t want you to leave,” he says in a shaky voice. “Please don’t go.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” JJ promises. She squeezes his hand tighter and he squeezes back, faintly. His bloodstained lips form the smallest smile before his eyes fall shut and his hand goes limp in hers. 

-

Garcia hears that a member of the BAU has been shot and breaks all the speed limits on her way to the hospital. She bursts into the waiting room, takes inventory of her agents, and immediately vows to seek revenge on whoever hurt her precious baby genius. It takes her a few seconds to notice the tortured expressions of the rest of the team. Something is very wrong. 

“What is it?” she asks, looking from one face to another, desperate for answers. “What happened? Is he…?”

“He’s still in surgery,” Hotch replies, his face even more closed-off than usual. “We haven’t been told anything since we got here.”

She knows her team well enough to know that something else has happened. Without thinking, she reaches to Morgan’s arm for comfort. He flinches and steps back. “Derek, what happened?”

The words are almost impossible to get out, but Rossi finally manages. “The bullet that hit Reid was one of ours.”

“Either mine or Hotch’s,” Morgan tells her in a hollow voice. He refuses to lift his gaze from the floor. 

Penelope gasps, eyes wide. “Oh, God,” she breathes. She reaches out to Morgan again, but he pulls away. Emily takes her hand instead. 

“It doesn’t matter whose it was,” Dave tells them.

No one calls him out on the lie.


	2. the wait

Some time later, a surgeon comes out to meet the team. Wearing bloody scrubs and an exhausted expression, the doctor looks around the waiting room. “Family of Spencer Reid?”

Everyone scrambles to their feet. They immediately see the look in the surgeon’s eyes. Even before she suggests that they have their conversation somewhere private, they know it’s not good news. 

“The bullet hit Dr. Reid’s carotid artery. By the time we got him in the emergency room, he’d already lost a lot of blood. He received several blood transfusions to try to keep him stable, but his heart stopped twice when he was on the table. We were able to get a rhythm back both times, but it took much longer than we would have liked. Between his blood loss and the cardiac arrests, his brain was deprived of oxygen for a substantial amount of time.”

“What does that mean?” Prentiss asked anxiously. 

“It means that Dr. Reid is in a coma,” the doctor says simply. “We’ll need to run further tests to determine the extent of the damage.”

JJ tries to filter through all of this information, and forces herself to focus only on the best. “But he could wake up, right? People wake up from comas. He could be okay?”

The surgeon gives a weak smile. “It is possible. but highly unlikely. You should...prepare yourselves for the worst case-scenario.”

“Which is?” Rossi questions.

“He might not wake up,” the doctor explains grimly. “ And if he does, he will likely have neurological deficits.”

Garcia lets out a sob. Silent tears roll down JJ’s cheeks. Rossi has to hold Morgan back before he hurts himself or someone else. Hotch just stands there, numb. 

The doctor says it’s all right for them to visit. She lets them into Spencer’s ICU room. It’s quiet, save for the machines keeping Reid alive. It’s been a long time since any room with Spencer in it has been quiet. 

-

At some point, Rossi comes out of his fog for long enough to form a thought. He hunts down the doctor in charge of Reid’s case and pulls her aside. “Were you able to retrieve the bullet from Dr. Reid?” He prays that she’ll say no. 

The surgeon nods. “It’ll be sent to the Bureau for analysis.”

Rossi wishes he could tell her not to do that, to discard the bullet as medical waste. He wants to steal the evidence and bury it where no one will ever find it. He doesn’t want to know who was responsible for the shot. It’ll destroy what’s left of the team. 

But instead, he nods and thanks the doctor. She walks off, leaving him in the hallway alone. 

-

A technician asks Hotch and Morgan for their guns. They hand them over, both looking like dead men walking. 

Prentiss and Rossi spend the night by Reid's bedside. Rossi fills out weapons discharge reports so the others won’t have to. Prentiss just sits and thinks about the time she came back from the dead.

JJ goes home late so she won’t have to see her sons. She doesn’t know how she’s going to explain this to them.


	3. the truth

Over the next two days, Reid’s doctors subject him to endless neurological exams. Someone is beside his side at all times, watching and waiting and hoping. Spencer’s hospital room starts to look like a flower shop. 

Hanging over everybody’s heads is the question of the identity of the shooter. It doesn’t matter how many times Rossi tells them it doesn’t matter, or Garcia insists that it was an accident, or that JJ reminds them that Reid would never blame them. Morgan’s guilt is apparent in the way he refuses to allow anyone to touch him. He’s hypervigilant and refuses to meet anyone’s eyes. Hotch barely speaks except when necessary. He doesn’t sleep or eat. All he does is replay the shooting over and over in his mind. 

Cruz puts the BAU on stand-down. During that time, Hotch asks him to appoint a new unit chief. Rossi reluctantly steps up, knowing that his team couldn’t handle having someone else joining the team. He insists it’s only a temporary promotion, but Hotch doesn’t look so sure about that.

Two days after the fateful shooting, the ballistics report is complete. Rossi doesn’t know how long it sits on his desk before he can bring himself to read it. When he’s done, he calls both Hotch and Morgan to his office.

-

The folder is heavy in Dave’s hands. He wishes more than anything that he could bear this cross alone, but Cruz won’t let him. The section chief has already warned Rossi that there will have to be a full investigation into the shooting. No amount of bargaining with the higher-ups will change that. 

Hotch arrives first. Rossi closes the door behind him and sits down at his desk. He tells Hotch to take a seat as well, but he refuses. The profiler looks as if he’s aged ten years in the past two days

“You know why I called you here,” Rossi says simply. 

Hotch nods. “The ballistics are back.”

“They are,” Rossi confirms. He takes in the face of his friend and colleague, which looks worse than Dave has ever seen it. “Have you been sleeping at all since...the Daniels case?”

Aaron shrugs. “A little bit. At the hospital.”

“You haven’t gone home?” Rossi asks with concern.

“Jack’s been staying with Jessica,” Hotch states. He may have let his agent down, but he won’t let his son down as well. 

“You should go home. Staying with Reid...it’s not going to change anything.”

“I know it was my fault, Dave,” Hotch utters hoarsely. “Just-”

“It wasn’t you,” Rossi interrupts. “The bullet was traced back to Morgan’s gun.” With one smooth motion, he slides the file across the desk to his agent. Hotch snatches it up. His eyes fly across the report, then to Rossi’s face, then back to the page. 

For an instant, all he can feel is relief. It wasn’t his bullet. It wasn’t his fault. 

And then his body floods with shame, because a member of his team is still lying in the hospital, damaged quite possibly beyond repair, and another member of his team will probably never recover from the guilt of having fired that fateful shot. He may have not sent the bullet into Spencer’s body, but he was still the unit chief. What happened to his team was still his fault. 

“Does he - have you told Morgan yet?” Aaron asks. 

Dave shakes his head. 

Hotch closes his eyes and swallows hard. “There’s going to have to be an investigation,” he says flatly. 

Rossi gives him a small, grim nod. “There was no talking Cruz out of it.”

“It’s going to destroy Morgan,” Hotch says. There’s no malice in his words; it’s simply the truth. Both profilers know it. “It could have been any of us, but he’ll never forgive himself.”

“I’ll do...what I can,” Rossi promises. “The whole team will. We’ll get through it.”

-

Morgan raises his hand to Rossi’s door. His knuckles are an inch from the door when he hears a low voice from inside the office. He freezes, unsure whether or not to interrupt. 

“You should go home,” Rossi says. Then he utters something Morgan can’t quite make out. The agent glances around to make sure no one in the bullpen is looking before he leans closer to the door. 

“I know it was my fault, Dave.” 

Morgan blinks in surprise as he recognizes the voice of his unit chief. Hotch’s presence doesn’t surprise him so much as his tone. The man sounds...scared? Derek didn’t know the man was even capable of fear. 

But Dave’s words are the ones that really catch him off-guard. “It wasn’t you. The bullet was traced back to Morgan’s gun.”


	4. the aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, please note the tags for character death and suicide. This is not a happy fic; please don't read if you think you might be triggered by it.

The revelation almost knocks Morgan off his feet. He gasps for breath as the words sink in, stumbling away from Rossi’s door. The world spins around him as he makes his way down the stairs and out of the bullpen. He doesn’t know where he’s going. All he knows is that he has to get out of there.

He can’t face his team, knowing what he did. Knowing that his bullet missed the unsub, a target right in front of him who wasn’t moving, wasn’t struggling, wasn’t doing anything other than asking to be shot, and tore through the neck of his best friend, his brother. The best, most brilliant person he’d ever known has probably been permanently destroyed, and it’s his fault. 

He’s barely slept at all since the shooting. Every time he closes his eyes, all he can see is Reid’s helpless expression as he slips away, hurt and scared. He never even knew what hit him. 

Morgan ends up back home, and as he takes off his shoes, he finds the gun he keeps in his ankle holster. It’s a Glock, like the one he fired on Reid that day. Not the same weapon - that one is still evidence. But it’s close enough to bring all the memories flooding back. 

He finds himself turning over the gun in his hands. Then he clicks the safety off. His hands know what they’re going to do before his brain has had a chance to process it. 

He can’t go back to face his team. He can’t go through this investigation. He can’t go home to his family. One bullet might not stop another, but it’s the least he can do. He’s too dangerous to the people he loves. 

Derek Morgan puts the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. 

It’s the only solution.

-

Cruz gives the team psychological evaluations and three months of leave. He also prepares generous retirement packages for everyone, and is genuinely surprised when no one takes him up on the offer. They all think about it, but in the end, they need each other. What’s left of each other, anyways. 

Somehow, the BAU’s reputation survives. But it’s not unscathed. Fewer cases are assigned to them, and everyone knows it’s not just because they’re down two agents. 

Hotch eventually takes back the position of unit chief, if only in name. He leans of Dave more than he ever did before, out of a lack of confidence more than a lack of ability. Rossi lets him do it, even though he knows the man doesn’t need him. He knows the weight that falls on Aaron’s shoulders, and he refuses to add to it. 

Not that Rossi doesn’t have his own burden to carry. He was the first to Morgan’s house that day, having gone to check on his agent when he found Derek’s badge and gun on Reid’s desk. He identified the body alone. Afterwards, he blocked the door to make sure that no one else on his team would be haunted by what he saw. Rossi knows that he can handle it. Before, he might’ve thought the others could, too. He’s not willing to take that chance anymore. 

Garcia researches the best neurologists and convinces them to fly in from all over the country to see Reid. They run endless tests and charge endless fees, which Rossi pays without hesitation. And yet each doctor comes to the same conclusion. The chances of Reid waking up get smaller every day. The chances of him waking up as himself are even smaller. 

More than one of the doctors suggest moving Spencer to a long-term care facility. The team steadfastly refuses. They have no idea if he can tell the difference, but none of them can bring themselves to institutionalize their friend. Instead, Rossi shells out even more money to pay for in-home caregivers. They move Spencer back into his apartment and visit him there. They tell themselves that the familiar surroundings will help him to heal. 

Seven months after the Daniels case, the team gets a call. Spencer has pneumonia, and his doctors don’t think he’s going to make it through the night. The BAU, on a case in California, drops everything to race back home. They’re past hoping for a miracle. They just want to be able to say goodbye. 

They make it in time. Spencer Reid takes his last breath surrounded by people who love him. 

He’s not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we never learn  
> we been here before  
> why are we always stuck and running from  
> the bullets?  
> the bullets?  
> \- "Sign of the Times" by Harry Styles

**Author's Note:**

> I'm almost done with this fic, so it should be fully posted within a couple of days. I'm planning on writing a lot of angst over the next week or so, so please let me know if there are any ideas you want to see! And as always, please leave comments and feedback if you have any!
> 
> (if anyone's wondering when I'll get back to my other fics, like Out of the Water and Minds Over Matter, rest assured that I have not given up on them. I've been having a lot of writer's block lately, so I figured exploring some new story ideas might help me get back on track)


End file.
